The Ripple Effect
by Nayaritism
Summary: My series of drabbles. Each a complete one-shot with 1000 words or less. No rhyme or reason-at ALL. Just because. So thanks for reading them! Canon, AU, AH, any character, any setting, any genre, any rating. ENJOY!
1. Blood's Ripple

Hola chicos.

This is just a series of drabbles about nothing at all. It's to help keep my creative juices doing whatever it is that creative juices need to be doing. You know, whatev'. My goal is to try to keep each one under 1000 words but still have a beginning, middle and end. They might or might not have anything in common. Some might be funny, some much be smutty, and some might be twisty. Besides the volume, I've got no reigns here. You'll never know what you're gonna get. Who knows! Could be fun.

This first one is a little bit of horror.

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_**Blood's Ripple**_

It was that sound.

That sound that never ended. Like a leaky faucet.

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

Not that it wasn't a . . . _pleasant _leak. But when one tried to abstain from their very way of life, what came natural—what _is _natural—even the smallest things will drive you to the brink of insanity.

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

And each was distinct. A chorus of noise—heart pounding noise.

_Drip. Drop. Drip. Drip. Drop. Drop. Drip. DRIP. . DROP. DRIP._

A screaming echo curled and rang and stung like a spiked bell inside a skull. There was a grab, a furious pull at hair attached to that skull, but the tedium of sound was excruciating. And it would never just _end._

_DROP. DRIP. DRIP. DROP. DROP. DROP. DRIP. DRIP._

Any pattern was lost and all that _noise _became everything. It pooled in cheeks, just under a permeable . . . delectable surface. A mouth watered but not of saliva. Warmth spread like a fire left alone in a forest. Rubies glared: their pupils dilating in a way that indicated some sort of chemical reaction—some endorphic one.

Abstinence was for the weak.

Or perhaps only for those truly divine.

But it wasn't a moment of self-discovery or theories or philosophical thoughts. It was instinctual and when muscles coiled, constricting in length to prepare the body for _every _obstacle, nothing else mattered.

Predator was a word that wasn't synonymous with abstinence. At least that much was certain.

The screaming was no longer a thundering howl stabbing at a skull. It was everywhere, bouncing off of walls, a ceiling . . . skin.

When razors tore into skin there wasn't a sound. It didn't crunch like bones being broken. It didn't smash like a head colliding with a ground.

And when there was no noise at all everything was just _serene. _Nothing was more satisfying, not even the succulent taste of nature's wine on dehyrated lips.

A smile plastered itself on the face of a killer who, for at least another day, found peace in a silent echo of a once leaky faucet.

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Thanks for reading.

xxNaya


	2. A Christmas Surprise

Hola chicos!

Here's the next drabble installment. This was from an ADF prompt for a Twilight Christmas. If you aren't a member at Adifferentforest .com, then you need to get with it. I LOVE that place, it's not JUST a Twilight fansite, which is why I think I get along so well there. And it's so welcoming of everyone, no matter their interests.

Anyway, this was my entry for their Christmas contest. It's a Funny one-shot and exactly 1000 words!

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**A Christmas Surprise**

"Um, thanks . . . you really shouldn't have," I said, trying my hardest to keep my voice from cringing. Her eyes beamed across from me, golden eyes that shimmered in reds and greens and blues from the lights on the fragrant pine behind her. Encouragingly her shoulders rounded and she nodded to her company around us.

Two twitching fingers held up the present. Would it have been rude to ask what it was? My head tilted to the side as a part of it flopped open. Eyes wider than the expanse of frozen tundra around us darted to the new revelation in my hands and then to the faces of the other vampires in the room. For beings frozen in time they were having a hard time holding in their smiles, or in Edward's case his scowl. But it was Emmett who broke first in an entirely too amused voice.

"Why don't you tell her what you're supposed to do with it!"

My face flamed, and the blush that I could never control took over causing him to laugh at the "human" more. The last thing I needed was a demonstration, given the previous gifts in this series of tortures.

~xx~

"So, Bella, what do you want for Christmas?" Alice asked as she sped up to me, walking to our last class of the day before the winter break. With a curious smile and narrowed eyebrow, I turned to her.

"Alice, are you really asking me this?" Her spiky head bobbed with too much exuberance for still having one class left. My mind revolved around the much anticipated break and spending every minute I could manage of it with a dazzling bronze-haired Adonis.

"Yes. I'm trying something new this year. I am going to give you what you want. So you can't say you don't want anything."

"Ugh," I grumbled. "Alice I really don't—"

"Ah, ah, ah . . . none of that Isabella Swan," she said as she rather effectively avoided my threatening glare. When I stopped walking she began the typical Alice pout, bug-eyed puppies and newborn chicks had nothing on this look.

"Alice, all that I want is to spend Christmas with you and the family at home." She stopped walking and dropped the pout before looking at me inquisitively.

"Didn't Edward tell you?"

I bit my lip, nothing good ever started with _that _sentence. "Tell me what?"

Hesitation graced her face before her eyes glazed in that far-off way when she was having a vision. My short fingernails ran idly through the ends of my brown hair as I watched her engulfed in her vision. All the possible negative thoughts of what that statement and her vision could have meant were racing through my mind. But when her eyes found mine the resulting smile holding a glint of mischief wasn't anywhere near what I expected. The stinging in my lower lip increased tremendously as I wondered what this was all about. "Tell me _what_ exactly, Alice?"

"Each year Esme and Tanya split the holidays between the families. This Christmas we are going to Denali."

My face fell. "Oh . . . ." I had counted on spending the holiday with the Cullens; maybe they didn't want to spend it with me.

"No, no. You're invited Bella," Alice said quickly, knowing where my thoughts would veer. She wrapped herself around my arm and looked up at me. "As a matter of fact Tanya's excited about having to buy a gift for a human."

"Tanya?" Edward hadn't explained much about the Denali Coven, just that they were vegetarians like the Cullens and considered distant family. "Alice, I don't want someone who doesn't know me going through the hassle of buying me gifts. Please tell her—"

"Don't be silly Bella. She wants to." The glint of excitement returned to her eyes as the corners of her small mouth turned up. With a chirpy bounce she let go of my arm and continued walking in front of me, turning only to look back at me. "Besides, Tanya _always _gives the best gifts."

~xx~

The dangling contraption, in a bright blue, swung tauntingly in front of me. I think there was a depiction of a bird on it, or a butterfly. That part was weighty. There were straps that circled it, and a small remote that came with it.

"You wear it like you would underwear," Tanya said as she reached over to sit next to me, pushing the previous gifts in the box of surprises she got me off the wide couch. The warming lubricant that she had said "you'll need that trust me" plopped down on the rug, right next to the framed picture of Edward, Emmett got me that one.

Tanya grabbed the little remote as she shifted closer to me. Her long elegant hand reached for the dangling horror in mine as she adjusted it to what I assumed was the right way to hold it. This thing was like the thong of jock straps. My flamed face and embarrassed eyes stayed stuck to the gift, not daring to meet the stares of the captive audience. But their snickers and snorts, and one _very_ distinct groan, echoed and flickered like the flames from the fire. Tanya, however, was oblivious to all of this. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine I was somewhere else, not holding flimsy, lace material that was now vibrating in front of my Adonis of a future husband and his perfect family.

"And the best part, beside the glittering fabric"—_help me, dear God, she winked_—"is that this button causes a cooling sensation. You know, that way you can imagine—" Sure enough the thing cooled in my fingers and the shock caused me to cut off her words by dropping it, right onto the floor where it happily vibrated above the picture of Edward smirking.

_Oh. Dear. God._

_

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**Thanks for reading!**

**xxNaya**


	3. Burn it All

Hola chicos!

This next drabble was done for the ADF Labor Day weekend contest. The rules were you had to envision a canon-AU ten years after Eclipse. This is what I came up with.

I'm actually going to expand this drabble into a multi-chapter story, to be posted soon. BUT I wanted to also upload the original, that started it all.

The new story will be called: **_Wind Beaten Tree_**. Hopefully you guys will check it out!

This one is a bit of mystery and angst. And 995 words

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**Burn it All**

"Wh—what?" The fragile brunette's head twisted in the direction of the voice.

"I said that our time is up today, but I would like you to come back Thursday. The same time." His voice was direct, not demanding, but strong enough that it left little room for challenge. Not that the brunette would challenge it; there wasn't much of a fight left in her at all.

There wasn't much of _anything_ left in her at all.

With the exception of the child growing inside her.

ooOOoo

"What do you remember?"

"The smell."

"Tell me what it smelled like."

"Bleach."

"Bleach? Care to elaborate?"

"You ever stick your nose in bleach a take a strong whiff?"

"Can't say that I have . . . . Why bleach?"

"It burns . . . . Everything was burning . . . it hurts so much you bleed. There was so much blood."

"Wha—"

"It smelled like death."

ooOOoo

She stared out the window to the right of his office. It was snowing. She wondered when it stopped being summer. Forks had some very cold winters, but she figured because she was always cold, that that was why should couldn't tell the difference.

Outside, the trees were naked. Alone. Bare. Open to the freezing elements, thin, contorted limbs thrashing about, breaking, and bending over to the vicious winds and letting it abuse them.

She wondered if that window was actually a mirror.

ooOOoo

"You . . . _know _things?"

"Yeah."

"What types of things?"

"I know that you should be afraid of the stuff that goes _bump _in the night. I know that there are things out there that you can't even imagine."

"Like this . . . blonde you mentioned? Tell me about her."

"She . . . she just looked at them and they fell. But it was like someone was beating them up or something. They were whimpering and crying out and they looked like they were in so much pain."

"Yet she didn't hurt you?"

ooOOoo

With a heavy exhalation, the doctor turned a page in his notebook. The crinkle as it folded over was like a bullhorn in her ear, yet she didn't hear it. The screaming in her ears was always there, like the faded ring in high altitudes that wouldn't go away no matter how many times the ears were popped.

Her eyes lifted towards his face, but by the time they reached his long, wide nose they were too exhausted to care to go any higher.

She knew, without doubt, what he wrote in his book about her; it'd been the same thing since she had first started coming a month earlier, against her will.

First, he wrote about her appearance.

_Patient is underweight, far too underweight. Patient is pallid, skin blazing to the touch, yet constantly complains of chills. Patient's bruises never fade. Patient retains permanent black etchings under her brown eyes. Patient's stare continues to remain hollow._

Then it was about her behavior.

_Patient is non-responsive._

That one wasn't all that detailed because there wasn't much to it. It was that simple; she didn't respond to anything: noises, smells, tastes, thoughts, actions, visuals. It was as if she wasn't even there.

Then it was about her pregnancy.

_Patient appears to be in her third trimester. Patient doesn't know the infant's sex. Patient denies being pregnant. Patient says that "it's impossible."_

ooOOoo

For the first time in months, maybe even years, her eyes focused on something. It was a lighthouse to the shore . . . it was the iceberg to her unsinkable ship.

And she was sinking fast. Her knees gave out under her, crashing as she fell to the floor. Her vision grew hazy as her head swam. This time she really was nauseous, and before she could do anything else, she was rolling over to spew out everything that poisoned her.

Yet, even from her place on the ground, drowning, she felt the article on the doctor's desk call to her, right next to his notebook.

She knew, without doubt, what he wrote in his book about her.

It was about the facts.

_Patient is the sole survivor of the massive forest fire north of the Quileute Reservation that claimed the lives of sixteen of its residents and the entire Cullen family, whose property was located in the center of the blaze. Although fragments of bone were all identified from the residents, not a single remnant from the Cullen family had yet to be located._

ooOOoo

As the doctor ran to get her help, her mind took her back there, to that early morning, nearly ten years ago, before the sun would rise for the last time.

_"This is stupid."_

_"It's been decided."_

_"Well they have to know we're coming, the mindreading leech probably sniffed us out by now."_

_"Will you two shut up?"_

_"Why don't you bite me, Paul."_

_"Why don't you stop being a bitch, Leah."_

_"Why don't you stay out of it, Jake. This is your fault anyway. We could have already dealt with the problem, but you had to step in the way, and now they're getting married, and he's going to change her."_

_"We're just going to have to stop that then, won't we."_

But they didn't stop it, the ambush was anticipated. And the bloodsuckers fought back. Then when Bella tried to get in the middle of it because she couldn't bear to see Jake and Edward fighting, a fatal accident happened that changed everything. By the time the Volturi arrived to clean up the mess, there wasn't much left. Before Seth went back to the battle, he dragged an injured Leah far away from the open field, and hid her in the forest. She returned just in time to watch the lives of her entire pack demolished and the limbs of the vampires torn and piled up. The words they said, still rang, bleeding in her ears.

"Burn it all."

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**Thanks for reading!**

**xxNaya**


	4. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

Hey chicos.

This is just a small portion of a drabble I wrote for the TwiNetwork Iron Pen's challenge in December. The "secret" ingredients were: the professions a hooker and a Christmas elf. This is what I came up with in about 30 minutes.

* * *

"Advice is like snow—the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind." —Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Snow fell and blanketed the street, like a fresh coat of paint, splashing and leaving this monochromatic drench. It actually reminded Alice of of sperm. Blankets and blankets of ejaculate. And there wasn't much appealing about a sticky blanket of cum.

As disgusting as it was, there wasn't ever any thought of hers that didn't revolve around sex. And it had been that way for years.

When she was twelve years old, she had her first boyfriend—or at least that's what she'd told herself, then. He was nice to her, bought her things, took her places. Alice had never had a stable family life. Since a young age she'd been a ball of energy, and craved attention, and when her parents didn't provide it she sought it elsewhere. And the arms that she longed to welcome her, to hold her after a long day, to tell her that everything was going to be okay, to tell her that she was loved-they'd been the wrong arms. But by the time she realized it, it had been too late.

His name had been Tyler, and he told her that she was his world, his life. He laughed at her jokes, he smiled when she went on and on with her stories, her energy keeping her talking long after everyone else lost interest. But Tyler never lost interest. And Alice loved him. She loved him more than anything and when he started to pull away, she didn't understand why.

It started off small. He wouldn't visit as often. He would ignore her for a game on TV or a friend's phone call. The lack of attention devastated her. And when she brought up the issue, Tyler had a solution.

Tyler had friends.

And each one of his friends paid special attention to Alice, just not in the way she would have hoped, but she didn't want to make Tyler look bad in front of his friends by denying them. So she grinned and bore it. And when one friend became two, and two became ten, she slowly lost sight of why it had ever bothered her to begin with.

It would only be a matter of time before Tyler would start telling her that she could charge money for the attention she craved. And when she did, she not only had nice things, but people who always wanted to be with her and share her company, even if it was superficial.

But the joy of shiny things soon lost its luster—both the shiny things she received, and the novelty she once was to those who wanted her company. And the life she'd created started to fall around her.

With hollow eyes, Alice looked out into the snowy night around her. She'd walked this street so often that her path along the concrete was permanent, in just as many ways as it was on her own soul. The path she'd made for herself, the one she was trapped in, and the one she walked. It was all the same, and it had been that way for so long.

Nothing about the late December night appealed to her. Not the smells from the candle shop she passed in fragrant peppermints and pine, not the lights from the mall up ahead. It was all a backdrop to the path she'd chosen. It'd change every year, but she'd stay the same—walking up and down the path.

As she rounded the corner to the back of the mall—a favorite location of hers because most of her customers preferred the seclusion—the smell of a cigarette caught her attention.

Its aromatic enticement called to her. It'd been at least three hours since she'd had a smoke, and the last one she'd bummed off a customer, and the bastard had the audacity to take it off her payment. The smoke was like a finger, curling her in it's direction. And she followed happily.

She just about had a heart attack when she saw the owner of the luscious scent. She didn't know if she should laugh or be disgusted, but at that point it didn't matter.

He was tall, leaning against the back wall of the mall in a red and green pin-striped Christmas Elf costume. Everything about his outfit screamed joy and cheer, but the twitch of his lips and the glare in his eyes screamed "fuck this job."

She knew that feeling all too well.

As she approached him, she caught sight of a small patch of his dirt-blond hair under his Elf hat. He saw her approaching and waved her off. It didn't surprise her that he'd know exactly how she earned money by seeing her. One look at the bags under her eyes, the track marks on her arms, the disdain in her eyes, and it was obvious what she was. Her clothes didn't cover much, and they definitely didn't hide the truth.

"No, thanks."

"Oh, I'm not offering," she said as she came up next to him. He stood off the wall, and she'd realized just how tall he actually was—it was actually imposing. "I just wanted to know if I can bum a cigarette off you."

He gave her the once over; it was quick. But the way he paused after having done it made her feel like he was still looking at her. Looking over her, through her. Judging her. It wasn't the first time.

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

"Listen, Chris fucking Chringle, I didn't come here for a sermon or to be judged by a holiday dwarf about what to do. I just want a fucking cigarette. Do you have one or not?"

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Thanks for reading!

xxNaya


	5. Edward's Nightmare Before Christmas

Hey chicos.

This is a drabble I wrote for ADF "Edward's Nightmare Before Christmas" one-shot contest on ADF in December. It's supposed to be a dark and "surprising" and a bit of horror, in drabble style. I built off of something I'd previously written, and came up with this.

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It pooled under cheeks, under a permeable . . . delectable surface-the only true barrier. Not that any obstacle imaginable could deter the determined. It was the warmth of sun across noses in the summer; the smell of the ripest, richest nectar; the appeal of wealth among the impoverished, of food among the starving, of water among the desiccated . . . of drink.

Sustenance.

Infallibility was for the gods.

Or perhaps only for those truly not of this world.

Soulless was not a a word synonymous with infallibility. And as he watched-thirst unparalleled, as it always was-he knew that he was very much of this world, though not in any sense that made sense. But, of one thing he was certain, a deity he was not. Not an Adonis. Not a thing of beauty. And most certainly not a thing of worship.

A monster. A nightmare.

He came to accept this fact years before-ten to be exact. Ten years to the date he finally gave into what he was.

A mouth watered but not of saliva. Rubies glared: their pupils dilating in a way that indicated some sort of chemical reaction—some endorphic one. When muscles coiled, constricting in length to prepare the body for every obstacle, nothing else mattered.

Instinct.

The screaming was everywhere, bouncing off of walls, a ceiling . . . skin. When razors tore into skin there wasn't a sound. It didn't crunch like bones being broken. It didn't smash like a head colliding with a ground. And when there was no noise at all, even thoughts were eviscerated, everything was just serene. Nothing was more satisfying, not even the succulent taste of nature's wine on parched lips.

Abstinence was for the weak.

Or perhaps only for those truly divine.

Predator was a word that wasn't synonymous with abstinence. At least that much was certain. Though there were those among his kind that believed they were "truly divine." They were infallible. That the predator wasn't a monster.

It had been ten years since he thought of his "father." His sire. His curse. Yet it had been only a matter of minutes since he'd thought of her.

The female that he'd taken for nourishment, though if he were honest, not at all, had a blush like her. The female last week had the same color of hair. The one before that was her height. Before that her habit of lip-biting. Before her, her eyes.

But none had the scent.

And as terrible as it was, it was the scent his longed for the most, after all these years. Not the love. Not the warmth. Not companionship. Not the sense of hope and life and being more than this life. No-the monster inside missed the smell of her, the one that called to him like the drug it was. That very same drug that would be her undoing.

Carlisle had said he was strong enough. He had faith in him. After all he was able to save her from the hunter's venom that polluted her years before. But something about that time was different. It could have been the lust. It could have been the careless complacency he had around her. It could have been a dozen different things. But where he found fault most, beyond with himself, was with his "father." He had condemned him to this life. And in turn condemned her to her death that night years before.

A growl escaped his chest, deep and resounding as his fists clenched around the letter.

His"mother."

Christmas.

She missed him and wanted the "family" back together.

He laughed, though not in humor.

Perhaps it was time to return home. To have the maker see what his hands created.

Complacency was for the lonesome.

Or perhaps only for those truly blind.

Surprise was not a word that was synonymous with complacency. At least that much was certain. And as he stared into the widen, stricken eyes of those he used to hold in regard, he knew that surprise was the first of many emotions they'd experience this day.

"Isn't it customary to bring a dish to the holiday meal? Seeing as how we're _not_ human, you couldn't have anticipated I'd bring mashed potatoes?"

The young girl's final scream as he twisted her neck was a sound that each pair of ears would never forget. But that she was not even over the age of ten, scarred them all. Tattooing this encounter in their memories.

Permanent.

"The prodigal son returns, father." He seethed. Black, thick as tar on his words, his soul, everything that he was since he lost her. He met each gasp and attack with a sadistic snarl. This was one holiday that he would bleed red.

"Who will join me for the feast?"

Happiness was for the living.

Or perhaps only for those truly ignorant.

Infallibility, abstinence, complacency . . . none of these words were synonymous with happiness, nor would they ever be. Ultimately, at least Edward Cullen was no longer ignorant of that much.

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Thanks for reading!

xxNaya


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